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Many thanks to gwendee for encouraging and supporting me though my writer's block! Bestie I'm so sorry it took me so long,,,
As he approaches his destination, the first thing he notices is the state of the wind.
If you pay close enough attention, the air can reveal a lot about the state of the world. Only a few decades ago the air would be foul, rancid with the scent of misery, bloodshed, and ashes. Today the gentle breeze brings distant laughter from playing children, and little else.
The second thing he notices is a crowd of wind sprites, who chirp enthusiastically at him as they dance in the strong winds, just beyond the cliff.
He awkwardly nods at them in response. While he knows they are much hardier than they appear, and that their forms are simply how they prefer to appear, he can’t help but feel cautious around them, overly aware of his karmic debt.
Before he feels too unsettled and flees, his gaze is captured again. The third thing he notices is a little basket. And nestled inside…
He removes the lid. Several plates of almond tofu.
Really? This is why he was called here today? He doesn’t have time to, to shirk his duties for a calming meal. He needs to go, needs to get back to Liyue-
The almond tofu glistens deliciously at him.
Well. The food is already made , he supposes.
With a swish of his sleeve, the mask disappears from his face, his spear laid down.
As he sits, he pulls the basket closer to himself. A pair of lacquered wooden chopsticks have been provided, which he uses to pick up the jelly pieces.
The familiar sweetness makes him yearn for things he can’t have anymore, reminding him why, out of all the strange, diverse foodstuffs mortals have created, almond tofu is the only thing he can stand.
He tries to eat at a moderate pace, but all too soon the last piece is gone. He’s sipping at the juice remaining on the plate when a sudden gust of wind from behind takes him by surprise.
The wind sprites fare no better, squeaking indignantly as their dance is interrupted.
Someone approaches and sits beside him to watch the sprites in the air.
“Did you enjoy the food?”
He’s wearing a form from the days of the war, when he’d slain countless foes and accrued various fearsome titles. There are many ways one could refer to him; Stormbringer, Godslayer, Archlord of the Skies, and-
“Father,” he says, feeling even more awkward than he had earlier, “Did you call me here just for… a picnic?”
Barbatos chuckles lightly in response. “My dear Alatus, if I hadn’t, would you have ever taken a break of your own volition?”
“It’s my duty to safeguard Liyue,” he responds, avoiding his father’s eyes. “Until all the karmic resentment is gone, there is no rest for me.”
Barbatos hums non-committedly, allowing him to avoid discussing that particular point of contention. “But you can still make time to come see me, can’t you? Showing filial piety to your parents is also your duty, isn’t it?”
He turns again to Xiao, who can’t argue with such a statement. “If that is what you wish…” he turns back to hesitantly look him in the eye, “then this tainted one will listen closely for your calls.”
The Anemo Archon’s expression brightens, lighting up in victory. Teasingly, he commented, “You didn’t only agree because of the almond tofu, did you?”
“...It is a little bit because of it…”
“Hey!”
From then on, occasional picnics with his father became more commonplace. They usually happened atop Starsnatch Cliff, where the wind sprites of Barbatos’s era frolicked, but sometimes they sat on the highest branches of Wangshu Inn, or in the dizzyingly high peaks of Jueyun Karst.
Cloud Retainer had encountered them once, and had been delighted by the Anemo Archon’s talkative personality. They’d chattered on and on for hours, and even managed to pull Xiao into a debate about the merits of creating a mechanical device whose only purpose was to cook food.
When Barbatos left for Mondstadt that time, he was laden with various adeptal prototypes Cloud Retainer had insisted he test out for her.
Today, they’re at Starsnatch Cliff again, and he’s pulled from his wanderings by his father’s laughter as one of the sprites gleefully recounts some exciting tale to their creator. Barbatos’s hair is whipped to and fro by the sprite’s wild gesturing (for a being that possesses no arms to speak of, it can only gesture with the whole body).
Distracted as he is, the piece of almond tofu he picked up had started to split in the grip of his chopsticks, so he quickly eats it to prevent the pieces from falling. When he looks up again, the sight of his father’s brilliant iridescent wings, outstretched and poised for flight.
The wind howls in his ear from the force of Barbato’s take off, and in an instant he’s soaring among the other sprites, high in the sky.
Like Xiao, the Anemo Archon does not truly need wings to fly. Xiao can use Anemo power to stay afloat, and Barbatos’s true form isn’t even corporeal enough for gravity to act on it. He seems to prefer manifesting wings anyways, perhaps to honor the real Venti’s admiration for flying birds, perhaps to more closely resemble his son’s true form.
Regardless of the reason, wings the Anemo Archon does have, wings outlined by the expanse of the sky. The sun filtering through those feathers cast shadows on Xiao's face. The size of his father’s wings varies based on the intended usage, and right now they are large and built for power, sending currents and wind sprites tumbling in delight.
They mimic the wings he’s meant to have, Xiao realizes. Unlike Barbatos who has no defined form, Xiao takes more after his other parent. He has a permanent, unalterable true form, and he can’t change his wings at will.
The sight of Barbatos’s wings, so similar to his own, sends a strong rush of grief sweeping through him, stealing the air from his lungs and leaving him breathless.
He tears his eyes away from the skies and bends over, finding it hard to breathe. Gasping for air, he tries to tamp down the bitter resentment suddenly rising up.
Why, why now? Isn’t this supposed to be a peaceful, relaxing moment? But the rational thoughts are easily swept away in the face of the crushing, overwhelming sorrow.
He yearns, in this moment, to be able to fly like that. To be kept afloat not through the use of Anemo energy, but through the powerful beating of outstretched wings on his back.
But he can’t. He will never know what it feels like, to have working wings of your own. He was taken before he learned to fly.
His old master had taken one look at him, and with a single flick slashed the leathery feathers into shreds. She had smiled, a falsely gentle expression, and said, “Just so you don’t get any silly ideas of escape,” as he screamed and writhed, leaving him curled up in agony in the entryway of her domain.
They had never healed during all his years in her service, so after Rex Lapis freed him and showed him how to appear human he’d hidden them away and never looked at them again.
All these centuries he hadn’t thought much about the state of his wings. There was always unrest to settle, resentment to quell, and no time to ponder other things. Now, however, all the negative emotions he’d suppressed surge upwards as tears drip from his eyes against his will.
He vaguely registers the swoosh of Barbatos landing abruptly in front of him where he’s hunched over in the grass, but it’s like his senses are muffled, and he’s registering the sound as if the sound waves have had to pass through several muffling mediums to reach him.
But the steady touch on his shoulder slams his sense of perception solidly back into his body, and he reflexively recoils from it before remembering where he is. He tries, unsuccessfully, to keep the hint of a sob out of his voice.
“My.. my lord, I apologi- “
He doesn’t get to finish the sentence, because Venti - Barbatos - his father’s arms pull him into an embrace. His face ends up smushed into his father’s upper torso(?).
Ah , he thinks dumbly, he’s changed his form again .
Like this, his arms are long enough to fully wrap around Xiao. Around them, Xiao can also feel the weight of Barbato’s true form, seeping out of the physical body to cover him like a blanket.
Though it is a child’s instinct to be at ease in the presence of a parental figure, it’s still ridiculous how quickly the resentment dissipates, aided by the god’s superior musical cultivation as he hums.
The wind sprites hover around them, emitting calming chirps that echo Barbatos’s tune. Several float up to his hair and nuzzle into it.
When the last of the karmic debt loosens its claws, Barbatos lets go, pulling back to look at him.
“I’m sorry, Alatus,” he looks guilty. Great. On top of ruining the day, he’s been the most unfilial son to ever exist and made his father sad. “I thought I could invite you to join me. I haven’t seen your lovely wings since…” Since Xiao was taken away. “..Since you were young. I didn’t mean to cause you so much pain.”
It’s not his fault. Xiao was the one who’s refused to tell his own father any specific details of his past. How was he meant to know what happened to his wings?
Xiao doesn’t say that out loud. Instead, he says, “She was. Thorough. In ensuring I couldn’t leave.”
He doesn’t need to specify who ‘She’ is. The brief flicker of concentrated bloodlust Barbatos emits indicates he knows full well who he means, though he suppresses it almost instantly.
His father seems to realize he doesn’t want to go into it further, so they sit together in comfortable silence for a while. Slowly, the sprites start resuming their playful activities above them, but Barbatos doesn’t join them.
It’s only a few hours later, when the setting sun is turning the clouds pink, that Barbatos tentatively turns to him again. “Alatus, would you be alright if I asked to see your wings?”
Xiao doesn’t have time to react before he hurriedly continues, “Something just doesn’t quite line up, you see. I mean, earlier, what you said, you were implying that your wings haven’t healed? All this time?”
He thinks he knows where this is going. “My wings were injured when she first. Acquired me. By the time Rex Lapis freed me, several hundred years had passed. There was no change to the state of the injuries during that timeframe. There is no way they could have miraculously-”
“But what if they did?” The god’s hands clamp onto his shoulders as he leans in. “I mean, not miraculously back to being perfect, obviously, but I’d wager you were in a pretty bad place most of the time back then. That kind of thing can manifest in the physical body sometimes too, y’know?”
“Like karmic debt?”
“ Exactly like karmic debt! But more based on your emotions instead of from dead gods’ wrath!” Barbatos snaps his fingers, pleased to have found an adequate analogy. “Now, if I ever had an absolutely shit day, which happens sometimes, I’d avoid manifesting a corporal body altogether because no real body means more for my emotions to mess around with, but for you it would definitely influence more minor things. For example, how fast you heal, hm?”
Hope, Xiao realizes, is terrifying . When he thought there was no hope, grieving and accepting reality was a straightforward process. It was easier to mourn a definitive end. What is someone supposed to do when the future is uncertain? Grieve in preparation for the worst ending? Hope for the best outcome without shielding yourself for the merciless stab of disappointment?
He has no idea what to feel.
Xiao’s pulled from his thoughts again by a hand that reaches out to pat him soothingly on the head.
“You don’t need to make a decision right this instant, my little bird,” Barbatos seems to guess his train of thought. “We can call it a day, and you can take some time to think about it?”
He considers it. Nods. As he and his father teleport back to Wangshu Inn, he tries to imagine again the feel of wings sprouting from his back to catch the wind.
His imagination conjures up nothing.
The topic of wings is constantly on Xiao’s mind. It doesn’t distract him from performing his duties, but others have definitely noticed he’s more out of it lately. Moon Carver advised him to meditate more often, and Mountain Shaper had warned him against letting his skills dull.
He’d heeded their words of concern, but his mind is not clear. Would he rather keep living as he is right now, or have to re-open closed wounds and adjust to something new?
He’s at his monthly meet-up with Ganyu, and she keeps glancing at him periodically out of the corner of her eye. He wonders what she sees, but indulges her anyway. “If you had already grieved for something you lost, how would you feel if it suddenly came back?”
Her brow furrows by a miniscule degree, which means she’s extremely confused, but she still dutifully spends a few minutes thinking.
Eventually, she says, “It would probably be painful at first to face what I thought I lost. I would also be terrified of losing it again, to the point of being unable to accept it. But some may disagree with this sort of thinking. Humans, for example, seem to look ahead more often than not. Their lives are short, so they try to make the most of the little time they have. Interesting, right?” She smiles at him, but it doesn’t reach her eyes.
He knows she has complicated feelings about her life in Liyue Harbor, but he doesn’t know how to ask her about it. Even if she told him about her struggles, he wouldn’t know how to respond anyway.
After the meal, as they exchange farewells, Xiao hopes that she finds her answers someday too.
A few nights later, he encounters Barbatos again, playing dizi on the inn’s roof. He doesn’t stop playing even as Xiao hops up and sits beside him.
Down below, the inn guests linger outside and listen. Occasionally some will look for the source of the music, but as the night wears on even the night owls head inside to rest.
Now it’s just the two of them still outside. The last song ends, and the flute is at last lowered.
The night breeze whooshes past them.
Xiao breaks the silence first. “I spoke to Ganyu the other day,” he starts.
“Oh?”
“Mn… she told me humanity tends to forge forward without stopping… The sorrows of the past hinder them less…”
“Mhmm?”
“... Humans are foolish… But they… are full of courage. From where do they draw their strength when the are so fragile and weak?”
Barbatos chuckles. “Oh Alatus, it’s because humans are so short-lived and delicate that they are like this. Yesterday’s regrets are set in stone but the future has yet to be told. If they get held back by their fears, nothing will change. So instead, they’ll reach out to grasp the future they want to see.”
He looks down, towards where the inn patrons are sleeping soundly in their rooms. “It’s what I admire the most in humanity,” he admits wistfully. “To embrace the unknown, no matter the cost… that is what human strength is.”
To let himself hope for his wings, for a future where they can lift him into the sky… Xiao thinks he can understand. If he keeps them locked away out of fear, he’ll lock away their potential as well. However much they may or may not have healed will have all been in vain. Like he’s crippling himself .
He feels that, rather than the humans, ‘foolish’ is suddenly a more apt descriptor for himself.
“Dad,” he blurts out, to his father’s delighted surprise, “I think you were right… I was… hesitant to explore the possibility because I feared it would be painful to find out… but at the very least… I owe it to my past self, to try. At least that much effort should be put in.”
Xiao watches the way Barbatos lights up and slowly beams at him. His smile is radiant, lighting up the night. He surges at him, hugging him tightly.
Xiao awkwardly returns the embrace. “... Are you crying into my shoulder?”
There’s a loud sniffle. “I’m just so happy for you!” Another sniffle.
Xiao sighs slightly, but still lets his dad keep hugging him and smearing his snot on his clothes.
It’s the afternoon of the next day. Barbatos had tagged along on his daily patrol so they could be done faster. He’s almost more excited than Xiao himself, unable to stop smiling and humming.
They’d found a nice spot on a hill a ways from the Inn, out of sight from the usual travel routes so they wouldn’t be bothered.
“Alatus, are you ready?”
All day he’d been thinking about this moment, looking forward to it. Butterflies flutter in his stomach. He is equal parts nervous and anticipating.
“Yes,” he says, and closes his eyes. Casts his mind a thousand years back, recalling the faint traces of his childhood.
He remembers opening and folding them, head craned around to watch how they moved. He remembers jumping, flapping off large boulders, pretending for a moment that he was flying. He remembers the sound as they rrriiiiiiiii- he does not remember that, he purges it from his thoughts. Instead he remembers the silhouette of his father’s winds, outlined by shadows on the ground.
The memories come faster.
He concentrates on the weight of them hanging off his shoulders, on the rustle of the wind breezing through them, on their shape, on the color of the feathers, light teal, almost mint-
Barbatos gasps. Xiao opens his eyes.
The world floods back into existence. The temperature had gone down. The sun has just slipped under the horizon, leaving only streaks of quickly-fading red behind in the sky. His father’s gaze is focused somewhere behind him, and there’s a weight hanging off his shoulders.
When he turns his head around, something gray catches his eyes. His wings…
The numerous places where they had been torn are now healed. Silvery-gray scar tissue, wrinkled and slightly saggy, covers the expanse of his wings. In some places, the scars pull tight over the bones, resulting in an awkward, stretching feeling. They neither look nor feel natural at all.
But the wings are whole. They’re healed.
He reaches out, brings one wing to the front, feels along the underside. They’re solid. They’re real .
He lets his father do the same. He marvels at them, unbothered by the ugliness of the scars, running his hand over teal and gray sections equally.
After they’re done touching, Xiao tries to flap them. Concentrating on his shoulder muscles, he tries pulling the wings back. They fling backwards, slapping each other like a pair of hands.
Clap!
“...”
“Pfft- hahaha- sorry sorry- hahaha!” His traitor father doubles over, giggling. “You didn't -pfft- have to flap them that ha - ahaha - hard -pfft!”
Xiao is vaguely aware he’s pouting, but still he takes his advice, and does the same thing, more gently this time. The wings reflect that, flapping more normally. They stir the air, sending small gusts flying.
“Yes, that’s it!” Barbatos hops onto his feet, doing a twirl. “After we strengthen your shoulder muscles a bit, you can try gliding on tree branches, and once you have the hang of that, you’ll be ready to- what’s wrong?”
His vision has gone blurry. What- ah, he’s crying. Tears are gathering in his eyes. That explains why his father has knelt back down, clasping his shoulders worriedly.
“Ah… I’m just… a bit overwhelmed, but I think this is.. Happiness.” He wipes them away. The corners of his mouth are upturned. He’s smiling.
As Venti sighs in relief and starts dramatically scolding him for almost giving his ‘poor, anxious dad a heart attack, you really had me so worried- ‘, Xiao thinks, as the light bit of light fades from the sky, that for once, he might be looking forward to the sunrise tomorrow and what it might bring.
Extra:
“Ah, there he is! Alatus, over here!!” there’s a figure in green waving at him from afar.
Xiao flies closer, the wings at his back flapping strongly. As he approaches, Barbatos’s expression morphs into one of mild alarm.
“Alatus slow down slow down you’re going to crash! You’re going to crash!”
He slows down abruptly, but it’s too late. Instead of landing on his feet, he has to drop into a roll, carried by the momentum. He stops, face-down in the grass, right in front of Cloud Retainer.
As she chuckles at the spectacle, Barbatos leans down and looks him over for any injuries.
“Alatus, we need to work on your braking and landing.”
He receives a muffled groan in response.